The mountain road was even creepier at night. She’d driven hard and fast from Roswell, pushing the speed limit more than she should, given that she was still driving a stolen car. It had been long enough that the plates were very likely in the system, so if someone pulled her over, she’d be caught. Still, she’d needed to make it to Santa Fe sooner than the others expected to give herself some time to snoop, and she’d gotten here almost an hour early.
The mobile phone beeped about a mile from the interstate, and when she slowed for a movement to examine it, she could see that she was now out of service range. She would have to drive all the way back here to call Trixie. She could picture the two of them in Trixie’s house, Annie pacing the floor, Trixie sitting by the phone. She might have a little extra time before they really began to worry, but either way, she needed to move quickly. She parked the car behind the same group of bushes as last time and got out, surprised by the cold, almost bitter mountain air. Her denim jacket was entirely inadequate, and she suppressed deep shivers.
Her tool bag had a little flashlight inside, but she kept it off as she walked up the long, steep driveway. This too was more nerve-wracking than it had been last time, as she didn’t know what to expect when she reached the top. Last time, she and Annie had been able to see that the house was empty, but she didn’t have any way to tell now. It was too late at night for Susan or Bill to be up, if they were here, and in the nearly total darkness, she wouldn’t be able to see any cars until it was too late.
She paused at the top of the driveway, ducking behind a large prickly pear. They were almost sure to have motion-sensor lights on every side of the house, so she would only have a minute or two to check the garage before needing to hide again if they were here. Her bag was hindering her movement a little, so she slung it off and set it down by the cactus. She dug around inside and found the connector box and her lock picks, sliding one into each of her jacket pockets before standing up. She rolled her shoulders, trying to loosen up a little, and then ran, as fast as she could, toward the garage. The lights turned on at once, startling in their brilliance, almost blinding her.
The windows into the garage were too high off the ground, and Gwen was forced to jump, foolishly, trying to look inside. She realized at once that it would be impossible. It was too dark to see anything. She made herself stop and take stock, listening. She could hear nothing, and no lights had turned on inside the house. She’d have to risk it.
She walked directly toward the front door, pausing to peer inside the large, front windows. It was too dark to see much beyond the first few feet of the entryway, but as far as she could tell, no one was here. She took out her lock picks and went to the door. She’d watched the little girl, Jen, when she entered the alarm code, so she saw no reason to try to sneak in any other way. She crouched in front of the lock, chose the right picks for this model, and started to work on it. Several long minutes later, she finally felt it start to give and stood up as the tumblers turned with the tools in her hands, the lock audibly clicking.
She put her hand on the knob, waiting again, ear pressed to the door. She was almost certain the house was empty. All of these outdoor lights had been on for at least five minutes now, and she wasn’t trying to hide what she was doing. More than likely, monitors somewhere inside the house were hooked up to all these cameras, which meant anyone looking would have spotted her immediately. Actually, someone could be staring out one of these windows at her, and she wouldn’t know. They could be standing on the other side of the door waiting for her. The police could be on their way, or the owners might decide to take matters into their own hands. This house was isolated enough to do whatever they wanted, and from what Annie had told her, she was sure Susan was capable of anything.
She took a deep breath and opened the door, pausing long enough to realize that no one was there before closing and locking it behind her. She went directly to the flashing alarm panel on the wall and entered the code. The flashing stopped and the system was off. She let out a long breath, realizing she’d been holding it. She was still a little rattled, and she jumped up and down a few times to shake off her nerves.
“You can do this,” she told herself. “Get it together, Ramsey.”
She started at the back of the house, near the door she and Annie had come in with Jen. She thought she’d remembered seeing an address book by the phone, and she spotted it again right away. She turned on her flashlight and opened the little book, not expecting to find what she was looking for, but hoping nonetheless. A little paper flag was sticking out at the edge in the D section, and she flipped there first. The entry read “Dallas House” but showed only a phone number, no address.
“Damn,” she said, but she wasn’t surprised. Who needed to put their own address in an address book? The phone number was probably for Jen, in case she forgot and needed to call them. Gwen flipped through the rest of the book as quickly as she could but didn’t see anything helpful.
She glanced at her watch. Ten minutes wasted already. Annie and Trixie would expect her to be getting close now. Even if she was slowed down for some reason, she had, at most, an hour to call before they’d start to worry. She was almost certain that if she was gone too long, Annie would insist on coming for her, and she had to avoid that at all costs.
She began to make her way back upstairs to the office, almost jumping out of her skin on the stairs when the outside motion lights winked off again. She was plunged into a darkness so absolute she could hardly see her hand in front of her face. Realizing she had no choice, she turned her flashlight on again, hoping she would be out of sight should Susan and Bill suddenly come up the driveway. It was unlikely, but she also didn’t want to give herself away that easily in case they did show up.
She felt safer in the office, deciding to risk the dim, desktop lamp. The office was at the back of the house, but she closed the door most of the way to block the light from the hallway just in case. She would have enough time to turn it off and hide if someone came in the front door or through the garage.
The room and its mess appeared to be the same as before, but Gwen couldn’t be certain either way. It was possible that they had come and left again, but she didn’t think so. Anyway, Annie had called Susan in Dallas this afternoon, and again, Gwen didn’t know how that could be faked. It might be possible to reroute a phone number to another location, but she’d never heard of it, and Susan’s phone number was a house phone. If anyone had been here, it would be Bill, but Gwen thought not. He would have stayed.
She leafed methodically through every pile of papers in the room, starting with the manila files on the desk and then working her way around clockwise from the door. Most of what she read was either bank or legal records. She spent a little extra time reading one brief but making very little sense of it. From what she could tell, Susan was suing someone, or someone was suing her, and the rest of the papers in that pile had something to do with the case. Only this address, the house in Santa Fe, was listed in the paperwork she examined. She got excited when she saw a Dallas address in the next pile, only to realize that it was the address of a bank.
Forty minutes later, she’d discovered exactly nothing, except that it seemed like Susan and Bill were involved in a great number of lawsuits. The second one she’d read had made it clearer that they were the ones being sued, over some kind of land dispute with their neighbors up here on the mountain. Another lawsuit suggested that they had defrauded a dry-cleaning business for $10,000. Another one seemed to be saying that Bill had pretended to be in a car accident for the insurance, but the insurance company was suing for a false claim. Basically, all she’d really learned was that they were con artists, and she’d already known that.
“Shit,” she said, loud enough that the echo made her jump. She smiled at herself. What had she expected? She’d planned to get Susan’s Dallas address, and then what? Go down there? A big part of her had wanted to do just that. But she would never have been able to go through with whatever that would mean. She wasn’t a murderer and didn’t want to become one. She’d half hoped she might be able to dig up something on Susan while she was here, but she didn’t have enough time, and what was more, she didn’t know what she was looking for. Trixie’s idea was probably for the best. She should do what she’d told them she would do—no more bullshit. She could be back with Annie in a few hours. A wave of warm relief washed through her. Things with Annie were, she realized, still salvageable. She needed to do what she’d said—go back to her. She picked up the phone next to her and dialed Trixie’s number.
“Hello?” Trixie said, almost breathless.
“I’m here.”
“Thank Christ. What took you so long?”
“There was an accident on the highway. Anyway, I’m about to hook up the gadget here. The mobile phone doesn’t work in this location.”
“Do you think there’s another phone line in the house?”
“No idea.”
“Check and see if the phone you’re using is plugged into the same phone jack as the computer.”
Gwen followed the line from the phone to a splitter. One line went to the phone, the other to the computer, but they were definitely using the same jack. She told Trixie.
“Damn. Cheap bastards. Okay, so that little splitter makes things a little more complicated. It might interfere with my connector box. You should unplug the line from the computer and put that into the connecter. Then unplug the splitter and plug the connector into the jack.”
“Won’t that mean the phone won’t work?”
“Exactly. That means you don’t have any reason to bother trying to hide what we’re doing. They’ll know the moment they try to make a phone call that something’s up. Damn! I wish that mobile phone was working.”
“Me, too. It went out of range way the heck back there.”
“It would be so much better if you could leave with the connector when I’m finished.” Trixie was quiet for a few seconds. “You know what. I just thought of something. You’re going to be on the web, so we could chat.”
Gwen was only vaguely aware of what that meant. She hadn’t had any reason to learn much about computers. “You mean like type-talking?”
Trixie laughed. “Exactly. Once you get logged in to AOL, I’ll pull up a chat box and tell you what I need to do that way.”
“Okay. Trixie, before I do that, could I talk to Annie real quick?”
“Sure.” During a long pause, Gwen could hear a murmured conversation on the other end before Annie picked up.
“Yes? Hello?”
“Hi, hon.”
“Hi, yourself. How are you doing?”
Her tone surprised Gwen. She’d expected Annie to sound relieved, glad to hear from her. Instead, she sounded almost cold, guarded, even, almost like she’d been when they’d first met.
“I’m okay,” Gwen said. “I’m about to hook up the thingy to the computer.”
“Good. I can’t wait for this all to be over.”
Gwen couldn’t help but react with anger. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Annie sighed. “It doesn’t mean anything but what it means, Gwen. It’s after midnight. I’m tired. Don’t jump down my throat.”
Gwen’s heart sank. She and Annie had been separated for less than four hours, and she already sounded like she’d moved on. Coming here on her own had been a big mistake. She should have stayed and tried to make up for her stupid outburst. She should have brought Annie along. Everything she’d done in the last six hours had been a mistake.
“Okay, sorry. I just wanted to hear your voice. I wish…”
“What?”
“I wish you were here. I know I said you’d be safer there, but I hate being apart.”
Annie was quiet for a long time. “I hate it, too,” she finally whispered.
Gwen’s hopes rose, and she couldn’t help but smile. “I’ll make it up to you, Annie, I promise.”
“Get back safe. Drive all night if you have to, but come back to me.”
“I will.”
“Okay. I’m putting Trixie back on the line.”
After some more murmuring, Trixie picked up again. “You don’t deserve that angel, Gwen. She’s been here crying her eyes out since you left. Can’t understand what she sees in you.”
“I know it.”
“All right. Let’s get this show on the road. Hang up, hook up the connector, and dial in. I’ll send you a chat through AIM in a couple of minutes.”
“What’s AIM?”
“Never mind. You’ll see it.”
Gwen hung up and did what she was told. Once she’d hooked up the connector, it took a while to turn on the computer, which, she realized, she should have done right away. Once it was on, it took her even longer to figure out how to make AOL work once she found it. The password was apparently preloaded, as all she needed to do was click “Sign On,” but her inexperience with the mouse made all of this take longer than she’d expected.
A screeching sound greeted her once she’d clicked the right button, and she flinched at its volume. She’d seen people use this kind of thing before but never done it herself. Finally, something happened, and a new screen appeared. She looked at it curiously for a few seconds, using the arrows on the keyboard to move up and down. Suddenly a littler window popped up on the left side of the screen from “TrixieDixie.” She hit “Accept” and waited. After a little sound, something appeared in the new box.
TrixieDixie: Hey, we’re in.
Gwen took a moment to review the keys and then hunted and pecked a response. A different sound accompanied her reply.
SueBill4Ever: OK. What do I do?
TrixieDixie: Nothing right now. I’m going to take over your computer, but I’ll keep this chat open. You’ll hear a sound, and the little bar at the top of this will blink if I ask or tell you something.
SueBill4Ever: Affirmative.
TrixieDixie: LOL! You’re a dork.
Gwen didn’t know what LOL meant, but she apparently didn’t need to respond. She watched as the little arrow for the mouse began moving on its own on her screen. She assumed this meant that Trixie was controlling it on her end. The screen she’d been looking at disappeared, and Trixie was back to the Windows opening page. Gwen watched as she opened several of the folders on that screen, closing them as she went. She did some kind of search in Explorer, finally finding a folder labeled “Beach House.” She tried to open it, and a little box appeared with a blinking colon. The chat box made a sound and flashed, and Gwen selected it again.
TrixieDixie: I’m thinking there’s something in this folder. It’s the only one I’ve found that needs a password. I’m going to transfer the file to my computer and see if I can run it against some encryption software. Hang tight. This might take a while.
SueBill4Ever: OK.
Ten minutes passed, then fifteen. Gwen was starting to get anxious and couldn’t help but poke her head into the hallway, peering up and down into darkness. No sound and no light from anywhere else in the house. She was safe and had no reason to worry about being caught, but sitting here doing nothing was hard to take. Finally, almost the second when she was tempted to try to figure out how to use the chat thing on her own, it beeped and flashed again.
TrixieDixie: Okay, we might have a problem. Despite how incompetent these losers seem to be about computers and security software in general, they seem to have managed to do one thing right. My usual code-breaking software isn’t working on this file. I have a friend I can call for a new one he’s been working on, but that might take even longer. It would be best if you leave now, stay somewhere nearby tonight, and then, if I need you to do it, you can just go back.
Gwen didn’t respond right away. For some reason, she hadn’t anticipated something like this. At no point had she thought she might need to stay the night. Coming here, she’d had one plan—to get Susan’s address and possibly drive to Dallas. If she found something else on Susan, even better, but she hadn’t. She’d ditched both ideas, so she’d thought she’d be back on her way to Roswell. Now, not only was she not returning to Annie, but she might have to do all this again.
TrixieDixie: Gwen? Are you there? Is something wrong?
SueBill4Ever: No. Sorry. Just thinking. I wanted to come back there tonight.
TrixieDixie: I know, and I’m sorry, too. Annie’s pissed about it, if that makes you feel any better.
SueBill4Ever: Not really. Can you tell her
She couldn’t finish what she’d starting typing, but she accidently sent it anyway.
TrixieDixie: ?
SueBill4Ever: Just tell her.
TrixieDixie: She says me too. You two are too cute for words. Now sign out of AOL, and take the connector with you. Try to cover your tracks in case we don’t need you to go back. Give us a call when you get somewhere safe.
SueBill4Ever: OK.
It took Gwen a couple of minutes to figure out how to sign out. After struggling to find AOL, she was tempted to turn the whole damn thing off and hope for the best, but she finally realized that the AOL screen had simply been sent to the bottom of the Windows screen somehow. She signed out and closed it, then had to figure out how to turn off the computer. She knew that the power button would do it, but she also remembered there was a safer way. She should have asked for a quick tutorial on all this before driving up here. Or, even better, she should have brought Annie along. She clearly knew how to do all this, and then they would have spent tonight together.
She was still cursing at it when she felt a slight breeze behind her and then heard the door slam into the wall. She spun the desk chair around, reaching automatically for her gun, realizing with a stab of dismay that she’d left it behind in her bag outside. Even if she’d had it, it was too late. A man stood in the doorway, holding a gun on her.
“Stand up and put your hands on the back of your head.”